Man flies 193 miles in lawn chair

BEND, Oregon (AP) -- Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks -- and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons.

Destination: Idaho.

Balloons suspend Kent Couch in a lawn chair as he floats in the skies near Bend, Oregon, on Saturday.

With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast -- he could turn a spigot, release water and rise -- Couch headed into the Oregon sky.

Nearly nine hours later, the 47-year-old gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union, short of Idaho but about 193 miles from home.

"When you're a little kid and you're holding a helium balloon, it has to cross your mind," Couch told the Bend Bulletin.

"When you're laying in the grass on a summer day, and you see the clouds, you wish you could jump on them," he said. "This is as close as you can come to jumping on them. It's just like that."

Couch is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters -- who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons. Walters had surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules.

It was Couch's second flight.

In September, he got off the ground for six hours. Like Walters, he used a BB gun to pop the balloons, but he went into a rapid descent and eventually parachuted to safety.

This time, he was better prepared. The balloons had a new configuration, so it was easier to reach up and release a bit of helium instead of simply cutting off a balloon.

He took off at 6:06 a.m. Saturday after kissing his wife, Susan, goodbye and petting his Chihuahua, Isabella. As he made about 25 miles an hour, a three-car caravan filled with friends, family and the dog followed him from below.

Couch said he could hear cattle and children and even passed through clouds.

"It was beautiful -- beautiful," he told KTVZ-TV. He described the flight as mostly peaceful and serene, with occasional turbulence, like a hot-air balloon ride sitting down.

Couch decided to stop when he was down to a gallon of water and just eight pounds of ballast. Concerned about the rugged terrain outside La Grande, including Hells Canyon, he decided it was time to land.

He popped enough balloons to set the craft down, although he suffered rope burns. But after he jumped out, the wind grabbed his chair, with his video recorder, and the remaining balloons and swept them away. He's hoping to get them back some day.

Brandon Wilcox, owner of Professional Air, which charters and maintains planes at the Bend airport, said Couch definitely did it. Wilcox said he flew a plane nearby while Couch traveled and took photos of the flying lawn chair.

Whether Couch will take a third trip is up to his wife, and Susan Couch said she's thinking about saying no. But she said she was willing to go along with last weekend's trip.

"I know he'd be thinking about it more and more, it would always be on his mind," she said. "This way, at least he's fulfilled his dream."

Japanese sex engineers invent new vibrating condom

It is an open secret that Japanese enjoy the reputation of most cunning creators as far as the invention of stupid little things is concerned. This time they decided to make sex more pleasurable: Japanese engineers created a vibrating condom. The new kind of condom was presented at the international show of inventions in Geneva in April. The visitors applauded to the skilled craftsman from Taiwan, whose product became the high spot of the show. The anti-hemorrhoid chair became the second most interesting exhibit of the show. The artful construction was supposed to relieve a seating individual from such discomfort as constipation, hemorrhoid and poor blood circulation. Now the enterprising Japanese decided to launch the production of a new sex toy. It is a conventional condom with a hard plastic ring on its base. The ring is outfitted with a tiny spherical vibrator, which gives extra pleasure to the most intimate part of the woman's body. To find the perfect place for the vibrating device on such a small item as a condom was a very hard nut to crack for Japanese sex engineers. A special agent was sent to Japanese brothels to investigate the issue. The new condom is currently undergoing tests. Porno actors and script writers were honored to become the first humans to put the new device on and try it in action. Women, who experienced the new kind of pleasure, were all thrilled with the new sexual feeling. They said that the vibrating condom would give women a possibility to experience two pleasures simultaneously. The condom is very comfortable in use, they said, it is wireless. "A lot of men think that women like the back and forth movement in sex. This is absolutely wrong. They would rather prefer to have the penis inside producing up and down movements," a porno actor said. The man added that the new invention would be highly popular on the market.

Poll: Most Americans see lingering racism -- in others

(CNN) -- Most Americans, white and black, see racism as a lingering problem in the United States, and many say they know people who are racist, according to a new poll.

But few Americans of either race -- about one out of eight -- consider themselves racist.

And experts say racism has evolved from the days of Jim Crow to the point that people may not even recognize it in themselves. (Watch how many blacks are still afraid to stop in a Texas town )

A poll conducted last week by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN indicates that whites and blacks disagree on how serious a problem racial bias is in the United States.

Almost half of black respondents -- 49 percent -- said racism is a "very serious" problem, while 18 percent of whites shared that view. Forty-eight percent of whites and 35 percent of blacks chose the description "somewhat serious." (See the poll results)

Asked if they know someone they consider racist, 43 percent of whites and 48 percent of blacks said yes.

But just 13 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks consider themselves racially biased.

The poll was based on phone interviews conducted December 5 through Thursday with 1,207 Americans, including 328 blacks and 703 non-Hispanic whites.

Blind to bias?

University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize.

"We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," Dovidio said.

He added that 21st-century racism is different from that of the past.

"Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways," he said.

That "stealth" discrimination reveals itself in many different situations.

A three-year undercover investigation by the National Fair Housing Alliance found that real estate agents steered whites away from integrated neighborhoods and steered blacks toward predominantly black neighborhoods.

"Racism here is quite subtle," e-mailed CNN.com reader Blair William, originally from Trinidad, who now lives in Lexington, South Carolina. "I think that the issue is twofold. I believe that white America's perception of blacks is still generally negative based on their limited interaction with blacks, whether this is via the media or in person. ...

"On the other hand, black Americans need to stop devaluing themselves and their people," he added. "Another race can only respect you if you respect yourself and currently, I find that blacks still devalue and disgrace each other and themselves."

Applicants' names may sway employers

Racism also can be a factor in getting a job.

Candidates named Emily O'Brien or Neil McCarthy were much more likely to get calls back from potential employers than applicants named Tamika Williams and Jamal Jackson, even though they had the same credentials, according to a study by the University of Chicago.

Racial bias may even determine whether you can flag a cab.

New York Times writer Calvin Sims recently wrote about his experiences in the city.

"If a cab passes you by, obviously it is frustrating, it's degrading and it's just really confusing, because this is akin to being in the South and being refused service at a lunch counter, which is what happened in the '60s and '70s," he said.

'Differences ... make this world exciting'

The Opinion Research poll shows that blacks and whites disagree on how each race feels about the other.

Asked how many whites dislike blacks, 40 percent of black respondents said "all" or "many." Twenty-six percent of whites chose one of those replies.

On the question of how many blacks dislike whites, 33 percent of blacks said "all" or "many," while 38 percent of whites agreed -- not a significant difference statistically because of the poll's 5 percent margin of error.

About half of black respondents said they had been a victim of discrimination because of their race. A little more than a quarter of whites said they had been victims of racial discrimination.

"I am a firm believer that racism is rampant in the United States," wrote another CNN.com reader, Mark Boyle, of Muncie, Indiana.

"The concept of 'race' is flawed," he added. "Our differences as human beings are what make this world exciting and interesting. If we were all of the same culture, how boring would that be? The world needs to take a page from the atmosphere in Hawaii -- the most racially diverse place in which I have lived."

Waitress checks customer's ID ... discovers self

WESTLAKE, Ohio (AP) -- A bar waitress checking to see if a customer was legally old enough to drink looked down to see a familiar photo.
It was her own.
The 22-year-old waitress, whose name was not released, called police last week and said she had been handed her own stolen driver's license by a woman trying to prove she was 21.
The woman, who became suspicious of the delay as the waitress went to call police, fled the Moosehead Saloon, but her companion provided her name.
Maria Bergan, 23, of Lakewood, was charged Sunday night with identity theft and receiving stolen property. She was arrested at her home in suburban Cleveland.
The waitress said she had lost her wallet July 9 at a bar in Lakewood.
"The odds of this waitress recovering her own license defy calculation," police Capt. Guy Turner said Monday.

Smoking and sex go hand-in-hand?

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian brothel owners want an exemption to anti-smoking laws for sex workers and their clients because, they say, one thing leads to another.
Newspapers reported Sunday that the Australian Adult Entertainment Industry had written to Victoria state officials seeking an exemption to laws which ban smoking in workplaces for fear they will drive prostitutes back onto the street.
"People smoke when they drink, and people smoke when they fornicate," the industry group's William Albon was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press.
Smoking is banned in most public buildings across Australia and will be outlawed in hotels and other licensed premises in Victoria in July.
Albon said the ban would force "men, women and transgender persons" who work as prostitutes out of the state's 87 legal brothels and onto the streets, where they could potentially become targets for violence.
"Having them standing dressed in terms not conventional for the street might be a magnet for violent, anti-social behavior," he said.